Note 442 — Chapter XII
Reading edition
See the interesting study of the Corbaccio by Hauvette in Bulletin Italien (Bordeaux, 1901), Vol. I, No. I. Boccaccio says in the Corbaccio: "E primieramente la tua età, per la quale, se le tempie già bianche e la canuta barba non m' ingannano, tu dovresti avere li costumi del mondo, fuor delle fasce già sono degli anni quaranta e già venticinque, cominciatili a conoscere" (Ed. Moutier, 183). Hauvette interprets this: "Grown out of swaddling clothes as you are these forty years, you have known the world for twenty-five...." The majority of critics agree that the Corbaccio was written ca. 1355, in which year Boccaccio was forty-two years old. Twenty-five years before brings us to 1330, or almost to the dates on which he (1) deserted trade, and (2) first saw Fiammetta. But in another place in the same book he suggests that the book was written when the new year was about to begin: "l' anno ... è tosto per entrar nuovo," so that we may refer this unfortunate contretemps, and the writing of the Corbaccio in consequence, to December, 1355, i.e. February, 1356, new style, which brings us almost exactly to March, 1331, the day of the meeting with Fiammetta.
As to the title of this book we know nothing. If it signifies the Evil Raven and is derived from corbo, corvo, we cannot decide whether it refers to the widow, or her husband, or to Boccaccio himself. On the other hand, it may be derived from corba (Latin, corbis), a basket or trap, and this would be explicable. All we know is that in by far the greater number of MSS., and these the oldest, the work bears the title Corbaccio or Corbaccino; but whether this is owing to Boccaccio or not we cannot decide. The word does not occur in the text. The copyists were certainly unaware of its significance, and have always given it a sub-title, e.g. Corbaccio: libro del rimedio dello amore, ... detto il Corbaccio, or Corbaccius sive contra sceleratam viduam et alias feminas invectivæ, or Corbaccio nimico delle femmine. The false title Laberinto d' amore does not occur till the sixteenth century. Cf. Hauvette, op. cit., p. 3. n. 1.